


The Vanquished Here is Victor of the Field

by jujubiest



Series: The Longfellow Trilogy [3]
Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Age Difference, Barrison Prompts, Light Angst, Lime, M/M, Sex at S.T.A.R. Labs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-30
Updated: 2015-12-30
Packaged: 2018-05-10 09:43:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,186
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5580934
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jujubiest/pseuds/jujubiest
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For DanielleBlack1, who requested a third part to the miniseries starting with "Ships In The Night," preferably with some lemon or lime.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Vanquished Here is Victor of the Field

**Author's Note:**

  * For [DanielleBlack1](https://archiveofourown.org/users/DanielleBlack1/gifts).



_With armor shattered, and without a shield,_  
_I stand unmoved; do with me what thou wilt;_  
_I can resist no more, but will not yield._  
_This is no tournament where cowards tilt._

\- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, _Victor and Vanquished_

 

* * *

 

Harrison Wells already knew he was a weak man, but as it turns out he still has the ability to mortify what conscience he has with the extent of his capacity for selfishness, and for self-immolation.

He’s fallen in love with a man half his age who’s from another world, in the literal sense, and the moment he admits that to himself he’s lost, because he’s never learned to deny himself the things he truly wants. That sense of nobility just isn’t in him.

Still, there are lines he’s tried to draw…more, he thinks, out of self-protection than anything. The more attached he gets to Barry Allen, the more distracted he will become, and the more painful it will be when he finally leaves this place to return home.

He limits their time together as much as possible, and they are never, ever completely alone. Not since that night they first kissed in the Cortex. And even with all of the oh-so-legitimate reasons they’re both too busy to see each other most of the time, Harrison knows Barry has picked up on the pattern. He catches this look in his eyes sometimes, this confused glimmer of hurt that chips away at his resolve. But he’s determined. Stolen kisses in rare half-minutes when anyone might step into the room at any moment are all he can have of Barry Allen, and much more than he should want.

Unfortunately for Harrison, he underestimates how determined Barry can be.

* * *

 

It’s late. Harrison is the last one left in the lab for the night, everyone else having long since gone home. It’s much like any other night really, a seemingly endless number of them stretching behind and ahead of him, working himself to the point of exhaustion, sleeping a few hours, then getting back to it. He stands and stretches his arms above his head, wincing and then sighing in relief as his back and shoulders pop in about a half-dozen places.

He turns to head back toward Cisco’s storage room, the cot he set up for himself there beckoning to him…and that’s when he sees Barry.

The first thing that runs through his mind is that they’re completely alone, alone like they haven’t been in weeks. No one is walking in anytime soon.

The second, third, and fourth things that run through his mind are so vividly filthy that he’s ashamed to have thought them. And when Barry steps forward, into the dimmed lights of the Cortex, the glint in his eyes does not bode well for Harrison and all his carefully-drawn lines.

“Hey,” Barry says, his voice deceptively casual. He takes another step toward Harrison, closing the space between them at a deliberate, unhurried pace. Like he’s giving Harrison the chance to get out, if that’s what he really wants.

The problem is that what Harrison wants and what he should do are different things, and he’s fairly certain which one will win the moment Barry is within reach.

“Barry. What are you doing here?” It’s a stupid question, uttered in barely a whisper, because he knows the answer and fears the confirmation.

“I came to see you. It feels like we haven’t been alone in forever. Not since…” He trails off, the uncertainty in his voice contrasting sharply with the challenge in his eyes as he steps in close, looking up at Harrison with his eyes full of questions.

“Not since that first night we kissed,” Harrison confirms with his usual bluntness, and it’s impossible to miss the flash of hurt in Barry’s eyes as he says it.

“I don’t understand.” He says simply. Harrison sighs.

“No, I don’t suppose you would.” He tries to sidestep out of Barry’s reach, but there’s a hand on his arm, pulling him back, and Barry’s eyes, begging him to stay.

He takes in that look of desperation for a moment, so closely mirroring his own unarticulated feelings. And then, predictably, the selfish side of him wins the day. He dips his head and catches Barry’s lips with his, pulling him in with both hands until they’re pressed together from chest to knees.

From there it’s a short, stumbling shuffle to the cot in Cisco’s store room, items of clothing discarded haphazardly along the way along with whatever mental fortitude Harrison had left to resist anything and everything that Barry Allen might ask of him.

And he seems to want it all, taking the lead in exploring Harrison’s body with his mouth and hands, encouraging him without words to follow suit. Harrison finds he’s only too eager to oblige, to claim every inch of Barry with his lips and fingers and tongue, mark him with his teeth, suck bruises into the tender skin of his neck that on an ordinary person would stay for days. Barry puts his hand to one and laughs with wide, surprised eyes before flipping Harrison onto his back and holding him down while he returns the favor, making his own marks in a line across Harrison’s hipbone, making him squirm and beg, gasping, for more.

Barry gives him more. Barry gives him everything, in slow, torturous stages that bring them both to the brink time and again, until they’re both shaking and sweat-slick and frantic for release.

He’s going to hell for this and he doesn’t care, because the feeling of Barry shuddering apart beneath him is heaven enough, the sounds he makes, the look on his face when Harrison finally, _finally_ pushes him over the edge.

The way his name sounds in that wrecked, breathless voice. _Harrison._ Not Harry. Not Wells. _Harrison._ It draws him over as well, gasping for air and holding onto Barry like he’s the only thing keeping his head above water. Maybe he is.

“Barry,” he whispers into his shoulder, when he’s coherent enough to form words. “Barry, Barry, Barry.” It’s a prayer, a mantra, whispered between kisses pressed to sweat-damp, overheated skin. Barry’s arms tighten around him in response, a silent acceptance of his small act of worship.

“I—“ Barry starts to say, but Harrison pulls back and stops him with a kiss, not ready to hear it, not ready to face what it will mean for them both. Barry sinks into the kiss without protest, hands tangled tightly in his hair, almost painfully.

When they draw back from the kiss, Barry’s eyes say what Harrison refused to hear from his lips. He sighs into the space between them, a helpless, defeated sound.

There’s nothing he can do now to stop the eventual heartbreak they will bring each other. Perhaps there was never anything he could have done, from the moment they laid eyes on one another.

He decides he might as well surrender. Closing his eyes and pressing his forehead to Barry’s, he whispers the three words he refused to allow Barry to say just a few moments before.


End file.
